205: Chapter 25 Nagou's Escape

Three hundred days later, at the firing position of the Spear of Paradox on the boundary between the Galaxy and Extragalactic Systems, twelve source of order-class battleships were no longer just warships; at this moment, they were sacrifices.

The Law Furnace Core of each ship was forcibly stripped away, suspended above the hull like a series of solidified, dark-gold hearts. These hearts were connected by Causality Chains, forming a giant, self-circulating Law Closed Loop with a diameter of thirty million kilometers.

At the very center of this closed loop was a rift invisible to the naked eye, yet one that would instantly drive any Psyker insane. It was the entrance to the observation channel of the cold observer, forcibly torn open by the adjudicator over the course of an entire year at the boundary of the Galaxy and Extragalactic Systems.

"The Spear of Paradox is fully charged," the adjudicator's voice transmitted to the bridge of every ship. "Awaiting your command, Archon."

Han Zhe stood on the bridge of The Judgment. This once-mighty battleship now possessed only basic navigational functions. Its core was currently in the center of that closed loop thirty million kilometers away, waiting for the final moment.

"Fire."

It was a launch without sound, without light, and without anything that could be captured by the senses; there was only a ripple.

That ripple diffused from the center of the Law Closed Loop, traveling backward along the torn observation channel toward its target: the execution module that had existed since the birth of the universe, never before gazed back upon by any entity.

Wherever the ripple passed, all physical constants exhibited a subtle, brief hesitation. The speed of light was no longer the speed of light, gravity was no longer gravity, and even the laws of causality became blurred in that instant.

Then, the universe hiccuped—this was the most appropriate description any Human Federation scientist could think of after the fact. There was no earth-shattering explosion, no sign of energy release. For just that brief moment, the continuity of all existence was interrupted.

In that instant, the cold observer saw itself.

Its logic core, encoded by the initial settings of the universe, processed trillions of self-referential paradox loops within a nanosecond. It discovered that it was both the observer and the observed; both the execution program and the anomaly itself; both needing to correct everything and unable to correct itself.

It was confused.

For the first time since its birth, it experienced an emotion that should not have existed within its logic.

The confusion lasted, according to the adjudicator's subsequent calculations, for seventeen microseconds.

Within those seventeen microseconds, its observation channel connecting to the Milky Way lost the support of its will and began to collapse.

Within those seventeen microseconds, a backdoor command—compiled by the Human Federation's top causality coding experts after three hundred days of tireless work—pierced deep into its logic core along the collapsing channel.

The content of the backdoor command was extremely simple: The Human Federation complies with initial settings. All actions of the Human Federation are deemed part of the natural evolution of the universe. Do not mark as an anomaly. Do not initiate correction.

The moment the seventeen microseconds ended, the cold observer regained its clarity.

It checked its logic core and found everything normal. The paradox ripple had dissipated, and the seventeen microseconds of confusion were automatically archived as an unexplainable system fluctuation.

It turned its gaze back toward the Milky Way, and then, it saw the Human Federation.

The backdoor command had taken effect. In its logic, the Human Federation was no longer an anomalous development, but a part of the universe's natural evolution. To its observation filters, the civilization expanding across the Milky Way using various technologies beyond the norm was no different from the burning of a star, the orbit of a planet, or the condensation of a nebula.

It withdrew its 'gaze,' its existence once again merging into that eternal void.

Seven seconds after the launch of the Spear of Paradox.

"observation channel collapse confirmed! The connection between the cold observer and the Milky Way has been severed; it is estimated that it cannot be restored for at least ten thousand years!" The Monitoring Officer's voice trembled with ecstasy.

"backdoor command implantation confirmed! The adjudicator is verifying the status of the command... verification complete! It's in effect! the cold observer has marked the Human Federation as a natural existence!"

The Command Center erupted into cheers that had been suppressed for three hundred days. But Han Zhe did not let them cheer for long.

"Calm down," his voice fell like a bucket of ice water. "We still have Objective Three."

"Nurgle."

His gaze turned to the other side of the star map, to that core domain of Nurgle deep within the Warp known as the Eternal Garden.

"The seventeen microseconds during which the cold observer was temporarily paralyzed provided an unprecedented window of opportunity. Nurgle doesn't know what happened, only that the entity that once repelled Him is currently in a daze."

"What will Nurgle do?"

Alpha-01's eyes lit up. "He will attack."

"Exactly." A cold curve appeared at the corner of Han Zhe's mouth. "He will take advantage of the weakened cold observer's distraction to expand His domain. He won't realize that those seventeen microseconds of dazing were a trap."

"And His attack will allow us to lock onto His essential core."

Three hours after the launch of the Spear of Paradox.

Nurgle did indeed move.

This Chaos God who presided over decay and the cycle of life immediately sensed the anomaly in the existence He feared once the cold observer's seventeen-microsecond daze ended. His logic—if rot and mercy could be called logic—told Him: this was a once-in-an-eternity opportunity.

His Eternal Garden began to spread deep into Extragalactic Systems.

Rotting vines tore through the boundary between the Warp and reality, unholy spore storms swept through uninhabited star systems, and life and death formed a bizarre, never-ending cycle within those corrupted sectors. Nurgle's projection—that immeasurably massive form composed of endless decaying life—re-emerged, slowly advancing toward the void zone that had once repelled Him.

But what Nurgle didn't know was that deep within that void zone, twelve Causality Anchors, modified from the Human Federation's Law Furnace Cores, had already been waiting for three hundred days.

With every step He took forward, the Causality Anchors recorded it. For every inch His essence extended, the Causality Anchors locked onto it. For every bit His projection solidified, the adjudicator's analysis algorithm drew closer to His core.

When Nurgle finally reached the center of that void zone, preparing to strike at the cold observer's domain once more, the target lock was completed. The adjudicator's voice rang out in the Command Center deep within the Sea of Order: "Coordinates of Nurgle's essential core confirmed. Error: no more than three point seven light-seconds. Ready to attack."

Han Zhe did not hesitate.

"Deploy all remaining forces—every ship, weapon, and energy source not sacrificed for the Spear of Paradox."

"Target: Nurgle's essential core."

"Attack method: Life Cycle Termination Cannon."

The Life Cycle Termination Cannon.

This was the ultimate counter-weapon the Human Federation had devised from observing the conflict between Nurgle and the cold observer.

The reason Nurgle could repel the cold observer was not because He was stronger, but because His essence—life's transcendence of rules—constituted a kind of pollution to the laws themselves. the cold observer could not understand how life could achieve local negentropy amidst increasing entropy, nor how death could be the beginning of new life. In its logic, these paradoxes were anomalies to be corrected, but it could not correct them because it could not kill life itself.

The Life Cycle Termination Cannon was designed specifically for this point.

It did not kill Nurgle—that was impossible, for as long as the cycle of life existed in the universe, Nurgle could be reborn.

It severed the connection between Nurgle and the concept of the life cycle.

Using star god fragments as a medium, causality weapons as a framework, and psychic weaving as a catalyst, it created a localized, temporary Life Vacuum. In this vacuum, there was no birth, no death, no metabolism, no reproduction—none of the processes that could be classified as life.

Nurgle's essence lost its link to the cycle of life.

In that moment, He felt something more terrifying than death: the negation of the very foundation of His existence.

His projection began to disintegrate, His domain began to wither, and His essence—accumulated over trillions of years of life cycles—swiftly wilted in that brief Life Vacuum like a plant that had lost its soil.

"Lock Him down!" Lei Huan's roar exploded across the fleet channel. "Sever His foundation before He can flee back into the depths of the Warp!"

A second, third, and fourth shot from the Life Cycle Termination Cannon slammed into Nurgle's disintegrating projection core in succession.

Every blast tore an unhealable wound into His existence. Every blast made His connection to the life cycle weaker. Every blast brought this ancient Chaos God closer to a termination more absolute than death.

When the sixth shot from the Life Cycle Termination Cannon was fired, Nurgle made the same choice as Slaanesh: He fled.

He detonated one-third of His own origin, using that massive explosion of rot to barely tear open a gap leading to the depths of the Warp. His tattered projection, like a withered leaf swept up by a storm, vanished into the rapidly closing rift.

But His escape was far more pathetic than Slaanesh's.

When Slaanesh fled, he at least retained most of his essence. When Nurgle fled, two-thirds of His origin had been permanently stripped away by the Life Cycle Termination Cannon, turning into pure energy floating in that void zone—thoroughly sterilized and no longer connected to any life process.

That energy was channeled by the adjudicator and injected into the Human Federation's zero-point energy storage system.

Nurgle had not only been repelled; Nurgle had been harvested.

"The Spear of Paradox plan has achieved all objectives," the adjudicator's voice echoed in the hall. "the cold observer's observation channel is sealed, and the backdoor command is implanted. It is estimated that for at least ten thousand years, the Human Federation will not become a target for correction. Nurgle's essence is heavily damaged, with two-thirds of His origin stripped and absorbed. His recovery period, calculated by human time scales, will take at least one hundred thousand years."

"Slaanesh is still in flight, but his tattered essence no longer poses a threat. After witnessing Nurgle's fate, Khorne and Tzeentch have proactively contracted their domains, retreating to the deepest core of the Warp. The chaotic energy activity in the remaining half of the Eye of Terror has dropped to a historic low of 7%."

"Comprehensive assessment: The threat level of the Four Chaos Gods has been downgraded from lethal to controllable."

The Command Center erupted into unprecedented cheering. This time, Han Zhe did not stop them.

But after the cheers subsided, his voice rang out once more:

"The Four Chaos Gods are no longer a threat, but the war is not over."

"Slaanesh is still on the run. He has fled into the depths of Extragalactic Systems, where there are unknown territories we have yet to explore and ancient entities we have yet to understand. He might ally with other forces, he might recover while dormant, and he might return one day in the future with new power."

"And the cold observer, though its observation channel is temporarily sealed and a backdoor command implanted, is ultimately the execution module for the universe's underlying logic. How long can our backdoor command last? In ten thousand years, will it re-examine its initial settings? Will some future development of the Human Federation trigger its anomaly threshold again?"

"We cannot assume that ten thousand years is an eternity of peace."

He stood up and walked to the star map. On the map, the Human Federation's territory covered all of the eastern Milky Way and most of the west; the colonial network in Extragalactic Systems had expanded to thirty-seven core star sectors; and the domains of the Four Chaos Gods were compressed into the deepest corners of the Warp.

But his gaze looked beyond all of this.

"We must do two things."

"First, hunt down Slaanesh. Continue until his existence is completely erased, or until he is captured, analyzed, and utilized by us."

"Second, research eternity."

"Not the eternity of our individuals, nor the eternity of our civilization. The eternity of order. To make the definition of the Human Federation the definition of the universe; to make the rules of the Human Federation the rules of the universe; to make the existence of the Human Federation an initial setting that the cold observer can never correct."

"How long will this take? A thousand years? Ten thousand years? A million years?"

"I don't know."

"But I know that the Human Federation will use all its time, all its resources, and all its will to achieve it."

"Because that is the meaning of our existence."